My primary interests lie in teaching. I have probably wanted to be a teacher for as long as I can remember. Even back in high school, I somehow managed to cover material in a mathematics course when our teacher was away for a couple weeks and our substitute was assigned to be no more than a glorified babysitter! I was a tutor through the National Honor Society and also served one academic hour a day as assistant to our physics teacher during her prep. In my undergrad days, I served as an informal tutor for a couple years before someone pointed out to me that I could work for the university's Mathematics Learning Center as an official tutor. And so, I did! I worked there for my junior and senior years of undergrad in a number of capacities: one-on-one tutoring sessions, group tutoring sessions, walk-in help hours, and assistance to our college algebra course. As a math major in undergrad, I was the only tutor at the learning center at the time who was able and willing to tutor students beyond the core courses of calculus and statistics, and helped students through combinatorics, abstract algebra, and real analysis as well.
Partway through graduate school, I had a crisis of identity. Why was I there, working so hard, while my friends from undergrad had moved on to jobs in industry, in consulting, in government, and were easily making twice what I was making? My research was interesting enough, but computational work has its frustrating rhythm of bashing your head against a computer keyboard for months, then finally having a breakthrough for a few hours, then muddling around some more. Could I keep this up? I reexamined my reasons for being in graduate school and quickly realized that I was here to get the credentials I wanted to teach at the level I wanted. I had always joked in high school and undergrad that I'd stay in school until I wasn't smart enough, then stop and turn around and teach at the highest level I could. After a couple years in graduate school, I'd forgotten that I'd even told myself that.
I have worked to obtain as much teaching experience as I could ever since. In addition to the compulsory four semesters of serving as a teaching assistant in the Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering department, I served four semesters as co-instructor or recitation instructor for courses. I applied and was accepted to Notre Dame's first-ever First-Year Engineering Teaching Apprenticeship Program (FYETAP), and worked with faculty across the college to help conduct the first-year courses. I took up a position with the Kaneb Center for Teaching and Learning as a graduate associate, so that I could learn from others across the university and the community, and I helped to conduct workshops on topics ranging from "active learning" in lectures all the way to writing your own personal teaching philosophy.
I want to teach. I want to learn to be a better teacher. I want to help others to learn, and I want to help others learn how to teach. I would argue that the presence of teaching faculty in predominantly research-focused departments is essential to educating today's students. These students would be getting the best of two worlds - the latest and greatest teaching and learning methods from curriculum and instruction work, and access to the cutting-edge technological research performed by world experts. Therefore, I am grateful and thrilled to be working at the University of Maryland Baltimore County, a university with a reputation for commitment to undergraduate education and an up-and-coming premier research institution.